Dragon Done

I happily finished the dragon hat last night. I'm particularly proud of the fact that once I'd finished the crochet, I actually got out the darning needle and little scissors and wove in the loose ends straight away--oh well, within an hour. That's pretty much straight away. All too often I nearly finish something and then it becomes an annoying chore rather than a happy completion. Here it is in all its spiky glory. Not exactly what I'd call life-like. In different colours it could just about be a rooster hat or some sort of weird flower, but the requester will know it's a blue dragon hat and that's the main thing. As for the technical details: I used my own handspun. The body of the hat is two thicknesses of a faux marle merino. The spikes are one thickness of the same with a hand-dyed english leicester. That gives a slightly darker colour and maybe a bit more strength to the sticking-out bits without putting the itchy wool anywhere near the wearer's sensitive skin. And I decided against using beading wire to finish it. My challenge was to make a self-supporting fabric and I've done it. All those close little double crochet stitches make a nice tight fabric.

For those who don't know my friends . . . the "dragon hat girl" is the older sister of the "eyeball hat girl". With a pair like this anything could happen!